Here are some of the most-read stories of the past week — and stories you shouldn’t go without reading:
Military Resistance Forced Shift on Iran Strike
Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration’s shift from the military option of a massive strategic attack against Iran to a surgical strike against selected targets associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) appears to have been prompted not by new alarm at Iran’s role in Iraq but by the explicit opposition of the nation’s top military leaders to an unprovoked attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39716
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PAKISTAN: Attempt on Bhutto Adds to List of Shadowy Attacks
Beena Sarwar
KARACHI – ‘Jaanisar-e-Benazir’ (bodyguards ready to die for Benazir) proclaimed the white t-shirts sported by Pakistan Peoples? Party (PPP) workers responsible for security around the convoy of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto as she returned to Pakistan on Thursday, after almost nine years of self-exile.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39736
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BURMA: Will the Olympic Card Nudge China to Act?
Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING – Having scored a subtle victory in using the Olympics card to nudge China to apply pressure on Sudan, international activists are now hoping to tie the 2008 Beijing Olympics with the unfolding civil crisis in Burma and draw the world?s attention to China?s potential to act there.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39726
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SWAZILAND: Water – “Just a Matter of Delivery”?
James Hall
MBABANE – The main religious ceremony of the Swazi people is the “Incwala” or ‘Festival of the First Fruits’, held in late December. Dressed in traditional attire, tens of thousands of Swazi men and women dance and chant prayers to their ancestors. They seek good rains that will ensure abundant crops.
www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=39745
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DEATH PENALTY: Guatemala Complies with Inter-American Court Ruling
Inés Benítez
GUATEMALA CITY – The Guatemalan justice system commuted a death sentence handed down in 1999 to 40 years in prison this week, in compliance with a 2005 ruling issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39737
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LEBANON: What A ‘Safe’ Cluster Bomb Did
Rebecca Murray
TYRE – The explosion ripped through the tiny garden in rural south Lebanon, hurling Naemah Ghazi to the ground. The shrapnel from the bomb sliced through her legs, and she rapidly lost consciousness. “There was a lot of blood,” her mother Khadija recalls. “All her body was bleeding.”
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39652
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Homeless U.S. Vets Play the Waiting Game
Aaron Glantz
SAN FRANCISCO – U.S. Army Specialist James Eggemeyer injured himself before he even set foot in Iraq, jumping out of a C-130 gunship during training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39731
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Q&A: ‘Being Silenced Is So Serious That the Reason Pales in Comparison’
Interview with Cuban filmmaker Pavel Giroud
HAVANA – A decision by the Cuban Radio and Television Institute (ICRT) not to broadcast several video clips by national filmmakers rekindled controversy about the government?s cultural policy and its effects on the media.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39688
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GREECE: Migrants Confined in Degradation
Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS – “Conditions in the detention centre of Samos are offensive to human dignity, and a violation of human rights; it is a compromise of Greek status internationally.”
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39686
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EGYPT: An Environmental Make-Over for an Ancient Industry
Leslie-Ann Boctor* – IPS/IFEJ
CAIRO – Air pollution is so bad in Cairo that living in the sprawling city of 18 million residents is said to be akin to smoking 20 cigarettes a day. According to the World Health Organisation, the average Cairene ingests more than 20 times the acceptable level of air pollution a day.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39730
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ARGENTINA: Political Parties – An Endangered Species
Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES – Political parties are seeing their influence wane in many countries, say analysts. But in Argentina, the trend has become so acute that in the Oct. 28 presidential elections it will be difficult to even recognise the two parties that governed Argentina for much of the 20th century.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39732
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